Victory
by ArwenisWholocked
Summary: In the aftermath of the battle, victory does not come without a price. Avengers 1.5 spin-off; based on the characters from Hermione Thranduilion's "Avengers 1 and a Half".


_**A/N: Allo! Yep, I'm back. And I know, I haven't updated anything... I'll get to it, I promise... XP I hate being busy sometimes. But anyway, this story is a spin-off of an Avnegers RPG/fanfic that you can read on Hermione Thranduilion's account called "Avengers 1 and a Half" (ff dot net s/10816345/1/Avengers-1-and-a-Half). Frera, Thor and Jane's daughter, is the Elvish Butterfly's character; Alex (the Winter Soldier's) is mine. :) Give the OCs a chance, mate; it's worth it.**  
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**_Anyways, enjoy!_**

_**Love,**_

_**Arwen ;)**_

**Victory**

Alex would always remember the blood.

It was everywhere, seeping through bandages and clothing and half-healed wounds, the magic draining from them along with the blood pooling onto the ground.

The battlefield was covered in bodies, mangled, sightless, bloodless, the life rushing through their veins emptied into the crimsoned ground. The heavy clouds brooded over the destruction, mingling with smoke and the stench of death rising from the land.

Alex ran, her heart pounding in her chest, pain stabbing through her side as she held the damp bandages swaddling the wound. The battle was over, ravaging Vanaheim's soaring towers and breathtaking fields, painting everything with blood, smoke, and fire to a soundtrack of screams, dying breaths, and the realm crumbling around them. The faces of the dead stared up at her, some wide-eyed and vacant, expressionless; others terrified, surprised, angry, valiant.

One face.

Alex was looking for only one face, and each moment of _not_ finding it was a moment of mingled relief and terror. It could mean her quarry was alright- alive and perhaps wounded, but alive—or lost in the sea of bodies, dead or slowly slipping away, unable to move or call for help.

_Don't do this to me. Don't you DARE._

She didn't.

Alex saw her seconds later, her heart almost stopping as her gaze lit on her face.

"_Frera!_" A cry of horror burst from Alex's lips as she dashed forward, slipping on rocks slick with blood, a river of red and black—Chitauri, Aesir, human—bathing their surfaces in a sickening palate of colors.

Alex reached Frera's side in an instant, collapsing to her knees next to the limp form. Her fingers flew to Frera's neck, cold, shaking tips searching for a pulse, breathing, anything.

Nothing.

Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the scorch marks on Frera's armor; one or two exposed holes in the protection in non-vital areas.

And then she saw the knife.

For a moment, she simply stared at it, uncomprehending, confused as to why a knife blade was protruding partially from one of the scorched holes in the chest plate of Frera's armor, the metal tipped in crimson and dulled with drying blood.

_Blood… BLOOD._

_ Oh, no…!_

Cold sweat broke on Alex's forehead as she quickly and carefully slipped her arms underneath Frera and looked at her back, and she felt her heart stop.

A twisted, black dagger was plunged into Frera's back, directly parallel to her spinal cord. The ground beneath the girl was dark and damp with pooled blood; the caked and muddy dirt clung to her like a parasite.

"Frera, no… no, no, _no_," Alex whispered, looking at Frera's face in horror.

Sightless green eyes stared at the clouded sky, reflecting the stormy backdrop of victory; cold, bloodless lips were parted slightly, blood slowly drying inside her mouth, a trickle of crimson liquid tracing its way down her cheek.

Frera was cold.

_Cold is bad_, Alex thinks numbly. _Cold means gone. Gone, gone, gone gone gone_

She removed the dagger and tossed it aside, still staring into Frera's face.

"Please laugh," she pleaded brokenly. "Please slap me, scare me, do _something_. Please be a practical joke and it's all a lie; please, Frera, come _ON_…"

She sobbed, the sound broken and strangled, her gloved hands holding Frera's face and searching desperately for a sign of life and hating its absence. "Don't do this, don't _you dare DO THIS!_" she screamed, her hands automatically performing CPR, even her own body refusing to accept the obvious truth.

A thunderclap broke the brooding, tormented silence; Alex's trembling muscles gave out, and she collapsed against Frera, breathless and dizzied.

She looked into Frera's clouding eyes, watched the rain fall on her face.

And she knew it was too late.

Silent sobs racked Alex's body, her face buried in Frera's shoulder as the storm rolled in above them, cold rain soaking through her clothing and chilling her to the bone.

_ It was never supposed to be like this_, she thought bitterly, anger stirring in her chest. _I was supposed to protect her. I'm trained for this; I was prepared for this fight. And they _killed _her._

Her fists clenched unconsciously, and her hand went to Frera's knife, gripping it in a white-knuckled grasp that made her muscles tremble.

A Chitauri body twitched slightly, the last vestiges of life slowly draining away from its crumpled form.

Suddenly, Alex saw red.

Her hands moved almost of their own volition and attacked the Chitauri, her dagger flying to its throat.

"You did this," she snarled, circling the Chitauri and holding it to her chest. "You_ destroyed _her. Thoughtless, heartless, cold hearted. That's all you are or ever will be; you deserve her pain and so much more."

A choking, rasping sound emitted from its throat. For a moment, Alex was confused, unsure what to make of the sound.

And suddenly, she understood.

_ Laughter._ The creature was _laughing _at her pain.

In a fit of fury, she ripped the Chitauri's head to one side. Its neck snapped nastily, the noise sharp and piercing as it collapsed to the ground, face contorted with mingled shock and cruel amusement.

She3 pulled out her hand gun, cocked it, fired a full clip into the Chitauri's face, leaving it a smoking, bloodied mass of horror and disgust.

Her hands began to shake suddenly, and the gun dropped from her shock- stiffened fingers.

_ What have I done?!_

She fell to her knees next to Frera, shaking hands closing her eyelids over death-stilled green orbs.

A scream of rage and sorrow burned through Alex's throat, long and tortured, metallic with the scent of blood as the sound finally petered out into nothing, leaving nothing but voiceless desolation and a river of tears.

_This is our reward… This is our victory._

She collapsed on her back in the mud, staring vacantly at snow now falling from the sky, drifting to land on her face.

Beautiful and intricate.

_ Frera_.

Tears streamed down Alex's still, expressionless face. _My only friend._

_ Frera is gone._

And the world fell away into the darkness of her despair.


End file.
